How Claymore Gregg Came to Own Gull Cottage
by Juleeroze
Summary: Daniel Gregg always denied that Claymore was a descendant of his. How then, did he come to have possession of Gull Cottage? A little look at the history of some of the Gregg family and their roles in the growth of Schooner Bay.


**How Claymore Gregg Came to Own Gull Cottage**

by Julie Feldman

It was truly a sad thing when the body of Captain Daniel Gregg was found suffocated in his bedroom. A man in the prime of his life! And a suicide at that! It was too awful for words. And not only that, he had died intestate. Without a will, all his money and worldly goods were passed on to his next of kin. How unfortunate that his next of kin was so far removed, that the two had only met on two occasions.

Ely Abraham Gregg was also a great-great grandson of Ephraim Elias Gregg, and also a sea Captain. He and Daniel, therefore, were third cousins. The first time they met, (although neither remembered the occasion), they were young children, attending the wake of old Ephraim Elias second (and much younger) wife. The next time they met was at a family reunion when they were in their twenties. After that, their paths did not cross.

Ely's father had moved his family from Schooner Bay, to Mystic, Connecticut after the death of Aaron Thomas Gregg, Ephraim Elias second oldest son and Ely's great grandfather. Ely's father was a ship's chandler and Mystic was becoming a significant port in the whaling industry. Ely had signed onto his first whale boat as a fourteen-year old and quickly proved his worth. By the time of Daniel's death in 1869, Ely was also the owner of his own ship, but unlike his cousin, he typically spent more than two years on the seas at a time. This was typical for whalers, and it took an even tougher breed of mariner to withstand the work. When he finally arrived in Schooner Bay in 1871, he was fifty years old and the proud new husband of a wife, aged twenty.

Alice Victoria Winfield Gregg had grown up, the youngest of five daughters of John and Mary Winfield. John was a merchant in Mystic, and he was not happy that he had no sons to pass his name and business on to. Alice Victoria's entrance into this world as a girl was the last straw. After her birth he only spoke to his wife when absolutely necessary, treated her as merely his cook and housekeeper (while keeping a young woman in a small house up the Mystic River from the town), and treated his youngest with contempt and anger. As a young child Alice Victoria quickly learned to hide whenever her father was around. If that wasn't possible, she shrunk into the background as much as possible. If he ever spoke to her, she jumped and stammered. So, it was no wonder that she accepted Ely's proposal with alacrity. He treated her well during their marriage, was a loving father to their children, and having put his whaling days behind him, settled the family into a comfortable life.

Of course, that comfortable life was not only due to his own hard work, but from his inheritance from his distant relation. Immediately after their marriage, Ely and Alice Victoria moved to Schooner Bay and into Gull Cottage.

Neither felt entirely comfortable in the house. Nothing untoward ever happened, but they both felt that there was sense of something, as if the house were able to think for itself. They had no clue that Daniel had become a ghost, generally tied to Gull Cottage and Schooner Bay, because he was still learning how to _be_ a ghost. And his cousin, being a seaman, was quite welcome in the house as far as Daniel was concerned. His wife, however, was another matter. It was unseemly to have a woman aboard his ship. And Alice Victoria was so easily frightened; even when he wasn't trying to scare her, she jumped.

It was very quickly evident that she was with child. "A nursery aboard _my_ ship?" the ghost sneered to himself. "Well, they shan't have _my_ cradle, and as soon as the mewling infant is a few months old, I'll scare them away. That is, unless I can convince that Ely to listen to his frightened mouse of a wife and leave before her confinement. That would be best for all. I'm a gentleman, and I won't force a woman newly delivered of a child to move. That would be," he smiled to himself ruefully, "inhuman". "But as soon as the babe is six weeks old, out they will go."

It was easy to hide the cradle made for Daniel's father. Alice Victoria was an excellent housekeeper, if not a very inventive cook, but she had no desire to clean in the attic. A quick peek the first week she and Ely were in the house told her that there was nothing in particular that she liked or wanted anything to do with.

As for Ely, he was busy building a small real estate empire. Daniel had purchased a few properties around town; a lot near the wharf that he had intended to build a warehouse on and two small cottages behind the shops on Main Street. These now belonged to Ely, who purchased two storefronts on the commercial street and had them rented to a greengrocer and a cloth and notions store. He had no time for such foolishness as preparing a nursery and rooting around in an attic was not a productive use of his time.

In the few years since his untimely demise, Daniel had learned the art of walking through solid objects, making disembodied sounds and creaks and was becoming more proficient at creating the illusion of himself, although sometimes, when astral alignments were poor, the best that he could conjure was mist. He was very good, he reminded himself, at creating cold spots, and moving small objects but that was very, very basic. Still, he promised himself, he would become a master at all that a spirit could possibly do.

It was not his intention to be so frightening to Alice Victoria as to cause her and her baby harm, just create an unwelcoming atmosphere. He concentrated on cold spots in varied places and some moaning. She had taken to looking around corners as she walked around the house and stopping momentarily before she entered a room. Once, when she was coming in the back door with a basketful of dry sheets from the line, he laughed and she almost fainted. That evening after dinner, she screwed up her courage and spoke to Ely about the house.

"I know I'm just a silly woman, dear, but this house…well, this house…That is to say, Ely, that I, I don't think, and of course you _do_ have the final say, but,"

"Please! Out with it already, Alice. I won't bite your head off! Tell me what the matter is?"

"I don't feel comfortable in this house. There are things… going on."

"I'm sure you'll feel much better after the baby is born. You have too much time on your hands right now, my dear. The winds are sharp up here and there are so many windows and doors in this house, of course there are all sorts of sounds and rattles. Why, I've heard them myself! There is nothing else." Daniel wondered why his cousin was being so obstinate. He vowed to make more noise and move more objects for Ely's benefit, but while it was good practice for the ghost, it didn't seem to make any impression on the human.

A week later on the next to last day of November 1872, the baby arrived. "And she delivered it in _my_ bed! I'll never forgive her for that…" Daniel blustered. He was so angry that he actually blew the French doors of his cabin open with a bang and sent the telescope spinning.

"See, Ely! I told you there was something with this house."

"Nonsense, my dear. It's just this blustery weather." He got up to close the doors and then returned to Alice Victoria's side. "James Winfield Gregg. It has an important sound to it, doesn't it, darling?"

Apparently James Winfield Gregg didn't appreciate how important his name sounded, because he wailed, cried and fussed interminably. Whenever Daniel looked into his cradle, the baby was red in the face, either screaming or taking a deep breath to resume screaming. Alice Victoria was besides herself with worry, even beyond what most new mothers experience and crying almost as much as her son. Finally, the minister's wife suggested they hire a wet nurse. "It's not unusual, Mrs. Gregg. This is your first-time nursing and you are naturally anxious to do everything properly," she said, soothingly. "But the baby senses your anxiety and it make him anxious too. Then he cries and then he develops gas, and then he cries some more, and before you know it, he can't be calmed day or night. An experienced wet-nurse will be a blessing, and he'll calm down before you know it."

Ely was more than happy to pay for a wet nurse if it quieted his son and brought peace and quiet back to his home. Of course, with Alice Victoria not nursing him, they could resume their physical relationship more quickly. And after spending his adult life at sea, he had quite the appetite for her. Before you could say "with child", she was pregnant again and Daniel had to postpone haunting them out of his house. Sadly, she gave birth to a still-born boy. This time, the ghost didn't need to provide any needed emphasis. Alice Victoria told Ely that she couldn't stay in the house where she had lost this child. He had just acquired a nice four-bedroom property on the other edge of Schooner Bay and he quickly moved her and James Winfield there. He thought it would be easy to rent the Gull Cottage house, but seemingly no one wanted to stay in it more than a couple of nights at most.

In 1875 Alice Victoria was pregnant again and this time gave birth to a pretty little girl in early spring. Unfortunately, the hot summer brought dysentery which swept the child away. She felt that having James Winfield was enough and the thought of having another child to lose was too depressing to face. It was enough to have to be always on her guard to protect her son from illness or physical danger. Her life revolved around hovering over him and he became a spoiled child, one who had to be bribed with candy, toys, and later, gold coins. Still, Ely would not be put off. By Thanksgiving of 1877 she was pregnant again and on a glorious June day the following year, she gave birth to Eliza Araminta Gregg.

The baby was strong and was born with enough brown hair to put a ribbon in. Unlike her brother, it seemed she never cried. Daniel came to see her one evening when she was a week old, after her mother had put her down in her cradle. The child stared at the ghost with a calm gaze, and merely chewed on her fist. "How extraordinarily composed she is," thought Daniel. "She won't be much of a beauty, unfortunately, but she does have lovely eyes. They will be about the same color as mine, I think."

Daniel was quite right about Eliza Araminta. Unlike her brother who grew up into a well-made and handsome figure, his sister was tall and skinny with sharp features. By age twelve she took strides as long as a boy's and when she carried something, her bony elbows jutted out likes pelican wings. The only pretty things about her were her beautiful blue eyes and her gloriously thick red-brown hair. She knew full well that she was born to be an old maid and her only salvation would be an education. She wasn't sure she wanted marriage, if her mother's fate was typical. Alice Victoria's life revolved first around her son and second around Ely. She knew a few of the ladies in town and she did her duty in some of the charitable activities in Schooner Bay, but to say that she had a life outside of her home was a mistake. If she had any curiosity or any interests of her own, they had long ago been rooted out.

Eliza Araminta Gregg was an excellent student and had completed Schooner Bay Grammar School in 1893 when she was fifteen. She had decided that she would matriculate at Eastern State Normal School in Castine in the fall to become a teacher, but her parents refused to allow her to go.

"Father, it's not that far away," she protested.

"I know exactly where Castine is, Eliza. Three hours by train, two and a half by train and ferry. It doesn't matter. You're too young to be leaving home. And if you say I was younger yet, when I went to sea, that's different. Boys, especially in those days, could leave home without the worry a young woman has, even today."

"Mother, can't you say something to Father?"

"No, Eliza. I completely agree with your father. Fifteen is too young to leave the house. Why James is almost twenty-one and he still lives at home!"

"Well," thought the girl, "why leave when you have everything right here, including an apprenticeship with Father?" She took a breath and smoothed her skirt. She was sure that if she was calm and reasonable with her parents, she would find a solution to her dilemma. "How old would I have to be before you let me go to college?"

Her parents didn't expect the question and they looked back and forth at one another. They both knew as well as their daughter did, that if she didn't find a way to support herself after Ely passed on, she (as well as her mother) would be James' responsibility. The siblings weren't close and the idea of Eliza Araminta living in her brother's house as the old spinster aunt was too painful for any of them to bear.

"A year Ely? Would a year be sufficient? I could teach Eliza housekeeping and other useful things during the time."

"Hmmmm," he replied thoughtfully. He wasn't getting any younger, having just turned 72. And while he was as hale and hearty as he'd been twenty years ago, he was not so egotistical as to think that he could run his business and care for his family forever. "Hmmmm, sixteen. Perhaps. I need to know more about the school, the arrangements for the students, who the teachers are, etcetera."

Eliza Araminta threw her arms around Ely. "Father! Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart!" "Now, I haven't said I _would_ allow you to go yet, just that I'd look into it." But they both knew that it was just a matter of form. She consoled herself with the idea that a year wouldn't be too long to wait. In the meantime, she and her mother could begin to put away items she would need for school. "There is one thing, though," Ely said suddenly. "I want you to go and take care of Gull Cottage. I keep trying to rent or sell it, but no one wants to stay. It needs to be clean. It will be good experience for you to watch over it this year." "Yes, of course, Father. It's a shame that everyone believes its haunted. I've always thought it was a nice house. And there is no such thing as ghosts, despite what all the spiritualists would have us believe."

The very next day, she gathered a bag-full of supplies, including a new broom, and began her walk from the south side of Schooner Bay north past all the shops and buildings her father owned, passed the schoolhouse and the smaller wharf that the local fishermen used, passed the large house that the Figg family was building at the north edge of town, and up the road that led to Gull Cottage and the promontory beyond. It was a fair morning, not too hot for the long walk with the load she was carrying, but still, when she reached the house, she was glad of the coolness inside. She stepped into the kitchen, which was still a marvel, and pumped some water in the sink. There had been a mug left on the draining board by the last hasty tenant, and once the clear cool water began to flow, she reached for it, only to see it skitter away from her. She looked at it with one arched eyebrow. "I didn't think the pump made the sink move that much," she thought to herself as she reached out for it.

After the cool, refreshing water, she took the ribbon which had tied her hair half up and retied it so that it was completely off her neck. Next, she donned a large apron and began to sweep. As she went from room to room, she pulled back curtains and opened windows to let out the mustiness. Checking the linen closet, she realized that all of the linens would need to be washed, dried and packed away properly. Like beating out the rugs, she'd have to tackle that next week.

Daniel had been watching her clean. While he didn't want a female aboard his ship as a living arrangement, having one to maintain its quarters met with his approval. And this one, he knew wasn't one of those sighing, fainting females, thank the powers! He followed Eliza Araminta from room to room, checking her cleaning. She was thorough, which he liked very much. When at last she entered the formal parlor of the house and pulled back the curtains on the two bay windows at each end of the room, the mid-day light illuminated the portrait of the builder of Gull Cottage. Of course, she had seen the painting several times when she was younger, but it hadn't meant much to her. After all, James was usually shrieking about being frightened by a spirit and it was hard to concentrate on much more than his whining and begging to be taken back to town. This time, she stopped and stared at the painting over the mantel of the fireplace.

"Why hadn't I ever realized what a handsome man Cousin Daniel was? Maybe I was too young to appreciate him?" she thought, but not only to herself. The Captain watched her and preened. "She does have good sense and taste, doesn't she?" Then he watched her shoulders sag. "Face facts, Eliza," she continued in her own mind. "There's no man like that for you. Probably no man at all. You've been taunted and called all sorts of names all your life. Don't expect that to change. You are in charge of your destiny, and you _will_ make something of yourself. You won't be beholden to any man, so stick to the plan you've devised." With that little pep talk behind her, she squared her shoulders again, and returned to her cleaning. What he overheard saddened the Captain. She was a strong, smart lass, even if she was truly homely. He directed her thoughts subtly to the book cabinet in his alcove. He meant her to pick up a book of poetry he thought she would like, but with a sudden stubborn flick of her own will, she picked up book on navigation. She sat down with it on the carved ebony sofa with the Japanese silk fabric, fascinated by the mathematics involved. Looking over her shoulder as she read, stopped and pondered, and worked out the examples in her head, he had to laugh; she was a natural-born navigator, as certainly a Gregg as any of them!

Eliza Araminta stopped when she thought she heard a laugh behind her. "No, it couldn't have been someone laughing," she said to herself. She wanted to investigate, but she realized that she had spent far too long reading and had to return to her work.

For the next year, she went up to Gull Cottage every week, sometimes twice a week. It hadn't taken her long to get the house sparkling and bright, so she was mystified when time after time, prospective tenants refused to rent it. Still, it meant that she had more time to read through Daniel Gregg's library, and by the time she was ready to leave for Castine, she had read every book at least once. She had always been very careful with all of them. They weren't hers, after all. In fact, she felt they really didn't belong to her father, either. He wasn't much interested in literature, and he had made it perfectly clear that he had put the sea behind him. So, it was with some surprise that Eliza Araminta Gregg had found that first book on navigation on top of her things when she opened her chest on arrival at her room at Eastern State Normal School. She picked the book up and went downstairs to the visiting parlor. It was furnished with many chairs, sofas and benches, and there was a very, very large and ornate tall case clock that had pride of place against the wall facing the room's windows. Eliza was wearing the school's uniform; a slim dark skirt, a white muslin shirtwaist with a black velvet knot under the collar and her hair piled high in the latest Gibson-girl fashion. The late afternoon light was falling at an angle over the old clock's face as it chimed the quarter hour with a deep resonant sound. For just one moment, she could have sworn that those chimes had held the baritone voice of a man, saying "Best of luck!" to her.

The four years she spent at college were the best so far of her young life. She made many friends, was well-liked by her teachers and at last felt that she was doing what she was meant to do. So, it was in 1898 Eliza Araminta Gregg returned permanently to Schooner Bay, Maine and began teaching at the grammar school with many mixed feelings. For 47 years she was a fixture at the school, first as a teacher, and then as the principal. In 1909 Bessie Stoddart began kindergarten in Miss Gregg's class and became her little shadow. In time she too would go to on to become a teacher at Schooner Bay Grammar School. In 1914, little Elvira Grover, a Figg descendant began her education as well, under the cool eye of Miss Gregg. Unlike Bessie who was a serious little student and didn't put on any airs, Elvira seemed to have been born with not only a silver spoon in her mouth, but a self-righteous sense of self as well. It took quite a lot of persuasion to get the child to do something she didn't want to do. While this wasn't unusual, especially in the lower grades, every September during the insufferable child's education, Eliza Araminta would have a quiet little temper tantrum the day before the start of school, because Elvira Grover was _once again_ in her class!

During this period, bit by bit James took over the running of Gregg Realty Company. He was a good businessman, but personally extravagant. He had the best of clothes, not made in the village, not even made in Boston, but all the way away in New York City. He had the first automobile in the county, and he spent many weekends in Boston at plays or seeing a vaudeville show. He married Sara Suzanne Stone in 1901 in a wedding that remained the talk of the village for the rest of his life, and not just for its extraordinary cost, but because the groom paid for it himself. Not only couldn't Sara's parents afford it, James wanted it to be a spectacular affair built around his own vision. His father passed on six months later after a stroke. Many in the town speculated that the extravagance of James' wedding was what caused it. It was a good thing Ely died when he did, because he never was happy with his son's free -spending ways, and James had overspent outrageously and was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Before the wedding, James purchased a large tract of land half-way up the hill from the center of town. It was an ideal location; not so close to the water that storms would be a danger, and not too close to the top of the hill so that the winds could blow them away. Of course, he paid a very pretty penny for this prime real estate, but naturally, he wanted the best for his future family. He hired an architect and together they designed a large house with a formal parlor, a family parlor, a "writing room", large dining room, a modern kitchen, scullery and pantry, an entry hall that ran the length of the house, a root cellar, five bedrooms (six if you counted the sewing room) two baths and indoor plumbing throughout. There was also to be a formal garden, kitchen garden, barn/garage and a lush lawn.

Of course, a grand house like this one would be quite expensive. The solution was simple; sell Gull Cottage. Of course, no one would buy it in the past, but perhaps, if he screwed up his courage, he might be able to communicate with the spirit of the long dead mariner and make him see the sense, the rightness of it. For all his trouble, all James got was a short trip through the air, landing in a heap just passed the ugly monkey-puzzle tree. Apparently the specter he thought of as "Uncle Daniel" didn't like him anymore as a grown man than he had as a child. It also seemed that he liked the idea of the house passing out of the Gregg family even less. That evening James pulled aside his sister as spoke to her about what had happened to him earlier in the day.

"Can't you make that old haunt see the need? I think he always liked you. You never had a problem when you went up there."

"That's because I never saw anything, never talked to any spirit, nothing like that, James. You really must take control of your imaginings! To think, you want me to go up to Gull Cottage and have a discussion with the plain air about how the house should allow itself to be sold. It's ludicrous, just ludicrous!" And with that, the ghost of Daniel Gregg was never mentioned by James Winfield Gregg again.

A year after the wedding, the new house was finished but unfurnished. The additional buildings were not up yet, and the property was just mud, but James and Sara were packed and ready to move, just in time for her to give birth to their first child. Alice Victoria and Eliza Araminta would stay in the old Gregg home. At fifty-one, widowed and no longer the one and only woman in her son's life, Alice had become demanding and petulant, a big change from her former mousy personality. She wasn't happy that her son and daughter-in-law were moving to this beautiful new house without her, and especially just before Sara's confinement.

In the midst of preparations to move, James was surprised at some callers at his office. They were two gentlemen from his bank in Boston. Well, he wasn't really that surprised. With his marriage and supervising the building of his new home, he hadn't been paying as much attention to his real estate business as he had previously, and he had lost several very good commissions, but now that things would be settling down, he would quickly be solvent again. It was really shameful the way these men were talking to him. Yes, he had taken out several loans in the last few years with his properties as collateral, and he had been making payments on them relatively regularly…

When he returned home that night, to the place that just this morning he thought of as his former home, he had lost his new house and land, the three properties that he had mortgaged, and his automobile. What was left was this house, his office and the houses and storefronts his father had built, two small seasonal rental properties, and Gull Cottage. He would have been more than happy to give up the Captain's house, but no one, not even the bank would take it.

A week later, James' and Sara's first child, Albert Ephraim Gregg was born in March 1902. Four more children would be delivered by 1914, all crowded together with their parents, grandmother and aunt in the house south of town. James's beautiful house on the hill was eventually sold to a member of the Figg family. He could literally feel them looking down on them.

Alice Victoria died in 1917 during the first, less lethal phase of the Great Influenza pandemic, as did James' and Sara's oldest daughter. The rest of the family was spared from the terrible virus. World War I saw much of Schooner Bay empty of young men, and then even of older men. Even though James was 46 in 1918, he had to register for the draft. He had rebuilt his business well before then, but ever after the "debacle", as he called it, he saved every penny he could, always fearing that the wolf was only one step away from his door. James had changed completely from being a spend-thrift to being miserly. No matter how Sara had tried to moderate his tendencies, he was always at one extreme or another. He cried poverty, but later the family would find out that he had accumulated a very good-sized nest egg.

Albert Ephraim was his aunt Eliza's favorite nephew. He was a bright boy with the familial blue Gregg eyes. He grew tall and was quite athletic. He also had inherited the Winfield temper of his great-grandfather and could yell and bluster with the best of them. Albert remembered his childhood fondly. Growing up with his siblings, grandmother and aunt, there was always somebody nearby. So, what if there was next to no room in the house? He didn't know any different. Toys were a luxury that the children rarely enjoyed, so they learned to make playthings out of common objects. Later, when everyone else was struggling with the Great Depression, the Gregg's were more than able to deal with it. It was their normal modus operandi.

If the Great War hadn't ended when it did, he would have volunteered in 1919, when he could get an exemption for being only 17. Aunt Eliza wanted him to go to college and perhaps become a lawyer. It had some attraction, but the cost was too much for him, his father would never pay his tuition, and the possibility of getting a scholarship was just out of reach. Settling in to learn the family real estate business wasn't such a terrible idea. He also got involved with town politics along with is old friend, Leander Whipple. Leander was a well-meaning fellow and good fun, but not the smartest oyster in the basket. While Albert was learning real estate and Roberts Rules of Order, Leander went to work as the janitor and general handyman at Schooner Bay Grammar School. This amused Eliza greatly. Yes, Leander was a bit slow, but he had a good heart. And he had an 'interesting' way of remembering great men. It was honest work, and he was good at it, and as far as she was concerned (once she became principal), he could be the school janitor as long as he wanted.

James retired from Gregg Realty in 1940 when Sara suddenly passed away. Their dreams had once been so big! After "the debacle", his world became as pinched as his attitude toward money. His children were all grown and off on their own. The only ones left in the house was his sister Eliza and his oldest, Albert and Albert's wife Ethel Claymore Collier and their eight-year-old son, Claymore Collier Gregg.

Ethel's family came from Keystone, where they had been fishermen for generations. She met Albert when she took a job at the Gregg Realty Company as a secretary and a bookkeeper. It wasn't long before they became serious about each other and they married in 1930. Ethel was the only person who didn't quail before her husband's temper, and she gave as good as she got. The "Battling Greggs" seemed to separate and then get back together at least once a year, even after their only child was born.

James found this to be a difficult situation to live with. All the noise and disruption, Ethel taking little Claymore home to her family in Keystone every time she and Albert had a major argument and Albert being morose and difficult in their absence wore on the old man. He missed Sara completely as well. When the Second World War started at the end of 1941, things only got worse. Real Estate was not an essential service, so Albert was drafted. Although he was in the Quartermasters' Corps, he was posted to the west coast. Ethel ended up working in a factory in Castine making fittings for marine diesel engines. There wasn't much activity in the offices of Gregg Realty Company. Despite the lifting of the last of the Depression, very few people had the need or the ready cash to purchase a house during the war. There was some business in rentals, as people came and went in the area, but it wasn't so great that James couldn't handle it himself, part time. Eliza had her position as Principal of the Schooner Bay Grammar School and every morning she and Claymore headed out for the walk across town.

Albert had bought a car in 1938, registering it to the business. It was a sporty Mercury convertible, a new line in the Ford family that year, and large enough to take clients to look at houses. Unfortunately, with the war came gasoline rationing and the car was put at the side of the house. Claymore dutifully started it once every two weeks and ran it for precisely 3 minutes so that the seals wouldn't dry out or the battery die. On rare occasions when the weather was very, very bad, Eliza would drive it to school, with Claymore by her side. The boy always dreamed of inheriting the car and driving it around town with the top down, showing off what a fine specimen of a man he was.

Albert was home from the war in June of 1945, never having been closer to the fighting than the military parades in the Presidio of San Francisco. He'd only come back for leave once, to share Christmas of 1943 with his family, more blustery than before, with his military experience in ordering around men of lower rank. He'd been sending money home, but still had enough for some nightlife and some female companionship in San Francisco.

Seeing his 13-year-old son when he was on leave was a surprise to Albert. The boy was already nearing 6 feet, but he had weak eyes and was wearing thick glasses. His father noticed that the boy took after his aunt; skinny and all feet and elbows but without any of her character, or his or Ethel's for that matter. Claymore jumped any time anyone said _anything_. This was not good. Albert saw that the boy needed "toughening up", but the week he had at home wasn't time enough to do it. The only thing was to confer with Ethel about it

"Well, what do you think I've been trying to do with him? But I'm only home on the weekends, so I can only do so much!"

"He's spending too much time being coddled by my father. My aunt used to be a stickler for doing things 'the right way', but I think her age is showing. She's not nearly as tough on Claymore as she needs to be."

"Then, Bertie, she's the person you need to be talking to, not me."

"Who said I wanted to talk to you anyway? And don't call me 'Bertie'. You know I hate that. Everyone else calls me 'Al'."

"All _I_ know is you hardly ever right any more…" Claymore didn't stay long enough to hear the rest of the conversation and snuck outside to sit in the Mercury. He had forgotten how vicious his parents' fights could be. And now his father was going to push Aunt Eliza to try to make a 'man' out of him. He was only 13! He had only just become a teenager. Couldn't they leave him alone?

"My dear nephew," began Eliza Araminta, looking down her extremely long nose at Albert, "I have been an educator for more than forty years. I think I know who needs to be 'whipped into shape' and how to do it and who needs a lighter touch. Claymore will not respond well to rough and tough treatment, I can assure you. He already turns too much inside himself and he is developing a compensatory strategy that shows itself as a nauseatingly egotistical manner. His mother bullies him enough on the weekend and it takes Father and I all week just to get his knees to stop knocking before she returns again." Albert could do nothing more than sigh. Until the war was over, there wasn't much that either he or Ethel could do about Claymore.

When Albert did finally return home, Claymore was nothing more than a taller version of his previous self. He had been working after school and during the summers doing odd jobs for James, usually small repairs on the rental houses, and put every penny into his savings account. As Grandpa said, compound interest was so exciting! And now with the war over and his parents back home, the Gregg Realty Company would revitalize, and in a few years he could join his father as a real estate agent.

Before any of that could happen, however, Albert had to deal with his father. James was not only slowing down but showing signs of senility. It started with little things, like forgetting that he had asked a question just minutes before, or that he had already read the newspaper and thrown it in the trash. Every week, he seemed to get worse, often wandering away during the night, or making "repairs" on the plumbing in the house. It was really painful for Claymore to watch, so with some trepidation, he asked his father if he couldn't turn a few rooms at the back of the office into a little apartment.

"I think that's a smart idea, Claymore, but it will be for me, not you. You're still needed in the house."

James passed away in 1948. Everyone told them it was a blessing because the old man couldn't walk or feed or toilet himself anymore and needed someone with him every moment of the day or night. That job had fallen to Ethel and Eliza. While it wasn't a pleasant job for either of them, Ethel was particularly demoralized by having to care for her father-in-law. Albert would take the old man out for a drive on Sunday until the last six months of his life, but that was all he would do. Claymore would try and sit and talk or read to his grandfather, but the teenager had never seen anyone who was senile before and it was difficult to endure. He had loved his grandfather, and to see this decline hurt him terribly. Eliza had retired as the Principal of the Schooner Bay Grammar School in June of 1945, just before Albert returned home, and her much anticipated "Golden Years" were being spent looking after her brother.

After James's passing, the family expected that most of his property would become Albert's with some small bequests for the other children, so they were surprised that Eliza Araminta had inherited Gull Cottage. In his will, James had stated, "I know how fond my sister is of the property, although she has always been unwilling to live there. Considering the issues regarding the grounds and the house, she is the only person who I believe, would be willing to keep it from falling into complete disrepair. While I was born too late to know the builder, Daniel Gregg, I know enough about him to believe that allowing that to happen would be a great disservice to his memory. Therefore, it is my sincere wish that my sister, Eliza Araminta Gregg receive the deed to Gull Cottage and to ensure that it is maintained." Eliza was as surprised as anyone. She was indeed still fond of the place, but what could she possibly do with it? It was much too large for just her, and Albert and Claymore wouldn't set foot in the place. After her experience caring for her brother, she thought it might make a good old-age home, especially for seamen and fishermen from the area, but she didn't have the kind of money that would allow her to do that properly.

Within six months of James' death, Albert and Ethel divorced. She moved back to her family in Keystone. Claymore had graduated high school and was taking a two-year business school correspondence course while learning about the real estate business with his father. Albert moved back into the Gregg house and for a while he, Claymore and Aunt Eliza had a quiet family life. Unfortunately for all of them the alimony he had to pay Ethel was a thorn in his side, and he wasn't shy about making it known. Claymore finally got tired of the tirades and being caught in the middle between his parents (Ethel could still be as loud as Albert) and moved into the little apartment attached to the office. It actually suited him just fine and he settled in, broke into his savings and bought a parakeet. Aunt Eliza would bring food over a few times a week and he would go visit Ethel every Sunday, like a dutiful son. That way he didn't really have to cook, which saved a great deal of money. Things went along like that until 1958.

Albert had been seeing someone for a few years and was considering marriage. The only problem was Ethel's alimony. He couldn't see paying for two wives, especially one as mean and difficult as his first one. Ethel was not at all amused by this turn of events. She didn't want Albert back, that was sure, but just the fact that someone did want him burned in her gullet. And then he wanted to discuss ending her alimony! She'd show him!

It was a cold February day and they had the same thought. Ethel got to Schooner Bay, just as Albert pulled out of the driveway and turned down the street, the two cars hitting each other head on. It wasn't such a terrible accident, as things go, but Ethel flew up toward the windshield of her car, bending over the steering wheel and then coming down on it with her neck. With her trachea shattered, she suffocated before they could get her out of the car. Albert had tried to assist in the rescue efforts, but when he saw his ex-wife's remains, he suffered a major heart attack and died as well.

Of course, poor Claymore was shattered. Eliza did what she could for her great-nephew, but she couldn't look past the grim humor of these two people who had come to hate each other so completely, dying within minutes of each other.

When it had warmed up sufficiently to make the walk, Eliza, then a spry 86-year old made her way up to Gull Cottage. She would visit the house a few times a year. She long ago had become convinced that Captain Daniel Gregg's spirit really did still resided there. She never saw him or heard him, but she did see things move around or be in a different place from where it had been on her last visit. His portrait seemed to glow now, and it was hard not to believe that its eyes weren't following her around the room. It was still impossible for anyone to stay more than one night in the place, and she had finally had to put stout locks on the doors to keep out teenagers who wanted to test their fearlessness. And then there was Danny, the strange fisherman who often came by to offer her a catch of lobsters whenever she was at the house. There was something quite odd about him, and it wasn't just that he had never been one of her students. He was always friendly in a polite and quiet way and he always emphasized that he admired the house and kept an eye on it. But, before she could start a conversation with him or turn to get money from her purse for his catch, he was always gone.

As had become her habit over the years, when she entered the house, she kept up a steady, if one-sided conversation with the Captain.

"I don't know how many years I have left, Captain Gregg. I've done my best to keep your house as you left it, but before too long, it will no longer belong to me. I will be leaving it to my great nephew, Claymore. I can't imagine you will like him much…he's quite timid. But there really is no choice, sir. I think it's important it be kept in the family. Perhaps someone will eventually come along who will love it and who you will tolerate living here. It needs a family, it really does. And perhaps, one day, we will meet. I would like that, Captain."

Daniel, by this time a super-spirit, by his own accounts, looked at the old woman. She was still not pretty physically, but my! What a personality she was! A Gregg through and through. Perhaps the last of the real ones, he thought. He smiled sadly to himself. "No, my dear cousin. We shall not meet on this side of the veil, or the other for that matter. Your trip to rejoin our ancestors will be direct but give them my best wishes when the time comes."

Eliza Araminta's time came two years later. Her will left everything to Claymore, along with admonishments to not horde his money, time, charity or love. Being of quite sound mind up until the moment of her death, Claymore's aunt knew that it would take many years and a few miracles for him to take her instructions to heart. Still, one could hope, couldn't one?

"So, there you are, Claymore. Your genealogy." Carolyn Muir held the binder out to her landlord and friend."

"I thank you so much for this. It must have taken you months of research!"

"Well," she replied, "I enjoyed doing it and I couldn't think of a better thing than this for your 40th birthday."

"And it show's I _am_ really a Gregg!" he giggled. "The Captain can't deny it now!"

"Yes, but you're not a _direct_ descendant. You're a cousin, many times removed," Mrs. Muir said pointedly.

"And the farther removed the better! Don't ever call me 'Uncle Daniel' again, you, you poor excuse for a moray!" The ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg materialized in Claymore's office.

"Can, can I c, call you Cousin Da, Da, Daniel?"


End file.
